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20 percent projects: 10 must-have tools

Students engaging in 20 percent projects must gather and curate information, share it and present it. Here are 10 tools to help.

Every good handyman (or handywoman) knows that having the right tool can save minutes — or hours — of work.

Academic work is no exception.

Students who engage in 20 percent projects — where 20 percent of class time is devoted to a project the student is passionate about — engage in certain activities to prepare for the culminating event: often a presentation in front of their peers.

4. KidBlog (sharing) –Progress on gathering information for 20 percent projects can easily be shared in a blog. (This podcast at Instructional Tech Talk opened my eyes to the idea.) It’s a great formative assessment and a way for classmates and teachers to follow along with a student’s 20 percent project.

5. LiveBinders (content curation) –LiveBinders brings the organizational features of three-ring binders (sorting with tabs, grouping information together) in a simple, easy-to-use site. I love how you can embed content from other sites in LiveBinders with embed codes or just a URL.

6. ChartGizmo (presentation) –Have you heard that a picture is worth a thousand words? So is a good chart. Chart Gizmo offers several types of charts that are easily shared via websites or social media.

7. Weebly (presentation) –Weebly is one of the most diverse website-creation tools I’ve found. On Weebly pages, you can post text and photos, embed videos and forms, upload files, link to social media, organize information and more. It’s a great home base for sharing everything in a 20 percent project.

8. Screen Capture (content gathering) –This is a Google Chrome app that I use all the time. Install it to Chrome and you can capture selections of a screen (or the whole screen), draw and write on it, and then save it to your computer, copy it for use in another program or share it across several sites. Very useful.

9. bubbl.us (brainstorming) –bubbl.us creates semantic maps (word webs) and is very customizable. Change the color of bubbles. Branch off any bubble. Edit text in the bubbles. Then save your work and share it with others. Great tool for charting out ideas.

10. Slideshare (presentation) –Presentation slides can easily be shared with the world through Slideshare. Link to slides or embed them in a website.

What other tools are must-haves for 20 percent projects or other long-term projects? Share your best ideas in a comment below!

If students are keeping their own blogs or vlogs, then they should also be following related blogs of others. Feedly.com is an amazing tool for students to bring RSS feeds on their 20% Time Project topics to themselves!

ABOUT MATT

Matt Miller

Ditch That Textbook is written by Matt Miller, a high school Spanish teacher in West Central Indiana. After trying to do the traditional "teach by the textbook" for a few years, he launched into a textbook-less path where learning activities were often custom-produced for his students as well as infused with technology. He likes the results a lot, and his students do, too. More about Matt »

SPEAKING
Matt speaks at schools, conferences and events about intentional technology use in the classroom. More details »

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